Love Handles (Oakland Hills #1)(65)

She arched her back. “Oh—Liam!”

His mouth sucked, his fingers teased.

“Ahh—” Bev's words melted into high, breathy sounds that drove him on. His jeans were killing him. He didn't know how much longer he would last—just so it was longer than her. She ran her fingers through his hair and pulled him closer. Such soft skin, so sweet—he licked and savored the taste of her, feeling her climb the steep slope to climax, pushing her higher—

“Not yet!” She pushed his head away. “I want you inside.”

“Easy.” He glanced up at her wild eyes, slid his fingers in and around, circled with his thumb. “Let it happen.”

“But—not yet—”

He lowered his head and stroked her long and hard with his tongue, and she cried out and gave up the fight, throwing back her head, digging her heels into the mattress, abandoning herself entirely.

Liam barely stayed behind long enough to tear off his jeans and get a condom on. She fell back to earth, eyes unfocused, but then saw his cock hard in his hands and said, “Hurry.”

“Coming,” he said roughly. Thank God.

He climbed up her body, straddled her, and rubbed his cock against her belly, risking it just once because he couldn't help it, then bent down to kiss her while he took her with his hand and with one last, sweet agony, shoved himself deep inside her.

She cried out. He felt the surge of satisfaction at biting the forbidden fruit, claiming it at last, accepting the inevitable mistake.

The feel of her legs clamping around his hips shot him higher, and he thrilled in the sight of her giving in to him, not holding back, her voice gasping with hot, noisy pleasure, and when she raked her nails across his back, the pain drove him further into madness.

She was everywhere and everything, drowning him. He held on as long as he could, flying wildly with her to the limits of pleasure and pain, with this creature that was woman and girl and mysterious wild thing, until they both shattered.

“Bev,” he gasped, not letting go, and they fell together.





Chapter 15

Bev stared at the ceiling through the strands of his blond hair. He was heavy and warm, his skin slick against hers, and as much as she wanted to stroke her hands down the muscles of his back and take more of him, the moment was fading. The fun was over and now it was time to pay. Any second now one of them would utter the lie, the lie that they hadn’t just ruined something, that sex wouldn’t change anything, that they would be able to do it again.

She slid her hands forward from their caressing perch on his broad shoulders and pushed him away.

“Sorry,” he said, collapsing next to her. He kept his arm tight over her belly, buried his face in the thrumming pulse at her throat, tickled her with feather kisses.

Inside her chest a fist wrapped around her heart and squeezed. She closed her eyes, savoring another second of him.

This could not go on. She wiggled away, avoiding his gaze. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

He held on to her waist while she sat up on the edge of the bed, and she heard him inhale sharply. “You are so beautiful,” he said, tracing her spine with a fingertip. A large, gentle hand brushed her hair to the side, and suddenly his mouth was on her neck, below her ear, soft and hot.

She wasn't strong enough. His lips teased the nerves under her ear and around her hairline while his fingers caressed her shoulder. “Lemons,” he whispered. “God, you smell so good.”

He was like a shark mistaking the surfer for a seal, dragging her from shore, preparing to consume her whole in the second bite. Her mind flailed around for something to make him let go, let her stagger back to shore, maimed but alive.

She turned her head, closer to the mouth nibbling on her earlobe, and said, “I think I'm falling in love with you.”

The kisses stopped. His hand stilled. After a long, tight moment he choked out, “Bev—”

“Gotcha.” She pulled away—no resistance now—and walked to the bathroom where she could recover. She locked the door and dropped her face into her hands, light-headed from the effort of leaving his bed. The weak confusion of her heart was the old, familiar ache of mismatched needs. Like so many men—and lucky women too—Liam was capable of a sexual and emotional disconnect she had never mastered. Unlike those lucky people Bev's heart and mind and body were braided together like pigtails. Now when she looked at Liam, she imagined he felt the same way. She felt that he felt the same way.

And she was wrong.

“Bev?” He tapped on the door, sounding uncomfortable, and that just wouldn't do.

She splashed water on her face, dried herself in a towel—hesitating, because it was suffused with the smell of him—and went over to open the door with his towel wrapped around her. “I thought you were going to feed me dinner.”

He had pulled his jeans on, which was telling. No belt, though. “Look, about—”

“Forget it, Liam. I was just—I don't know. Reminding both of us what we're screwing around with. Making a point.”

He glanced down at her body in the towel, closed his eyes, and looked up at her. “I just broke up with somebody—”

God. Not the I’m-not-ready-yet defense. “And so did I. You don't have to go there. I'm going to get dressed, have a bite of whatever it is that I smelled when we walked in the door and go.”